Of Marriageable Age (21 page)

'I'll tell her I'm going to marry you!'

'David! No! Don't tell her that! Promise you won't tell her that!'

'But why not, Sav? If I tell her that then all problems are solved. She always does what I want!'

'David, she won't like that, I just know it. She'll get all red and angry like she did that day when Boy cut down her favourite rose. She'll shout and send me away and then I really will have to leave.'

'It's not true, Sav. Mummy always does what I want. If I say I'm going to marry you she'll tell Cooky and then you can come and live here in our house and when we're grown up we'll marry! Look, I haven't got a ring but keep this! This is my promise to marry you!'

And he slipped a gold chain over his head and handed it to her through the bars, and she took it. She knew what it was: a gift from David's granny back in England, and it had a little golden cross dangling on the end, and Savitri knew that the cross was something from David's religion, it had to do with their God, and it was like Shiva, so she respected it and knew it was the holiest thing David could have given her. She slipped it over her own head.

'Thank you, David,' she said. 'I shall always keep it with me, and I promise to marry you. But still you should not tell your mother, promise me you won't!'

'But then, Sav, what shall we do?'

And the very helplessness of their position struck them into silence. Who were they, after all, but children? Children at the mercy of merciless adults who had the ultimate control to move them around the face of the earth as if they were mere counters on a gameboard, as if this love did not count, this love which was above all and more powerful than all the thought-bodies in the world. And yet it was powerless against the small group of men in Savitri's family who would carry out their plan, and tear them apart.

'It's just not fair!' said David, and stamped his foot, because for the first time he knew that he, too, was helpless, even against the insubordination of the natives who, he had learned from the very start of his life, were subject to his will. Even he, the young master, could not prevent a servant daughter's marriage.

'No matter what, Savitri, do you promise to marry me? Do you promise? No matter what? Say, do you promise?'

'Yes, David, of course! I love you with all my heart and I promise to marry you.'

E
XASPERATED
by the stubborn logic and insubordination of her cook, Mrs Lindsay lay tossing in her bed. She could dismiss him, of course, but that wouldn't change anything for Savitri. Or she could threaten to dismiss him, if he continued with this plan. Or threaten to turn him in to the authorities for trying to circumvent the law against child marriage — for what was this, in effect, but a child marriage, even if it should be consummated at a later date?

She simply could not allow it. Here in Fairwinds she was mistress, and not Iyer! How dare he go against her will, even if Savitri was his daughter!
She,
after all, knew better. And Savitri must finish her education, or at least continue it a little longer. Cooky was being too, too ridiculous. Pollution, indeed! If anyone was being polluted it was David, from mixing with a servant's child — (but no, it was wrong to think along those lines. We are all equal.) Any other father — any
English
father — would be happy for his daughter to receive such an excellent education. And such a bright girl, too. And what about David? Who would he play with, if Savitri left? This thought struck Mrs Lindsay as no other. David would be devastated. He would have not a single friend in Oleander Gardens — it was too late to make new friends now, and he'd be all alone, isolated, and it was years until he could be sent to school in England — four at least. For David's sake, she must do something.

And that was when Mrs Lindsay remembered her vow to 'do something' for the girl, so many months ago, before they'd gone to Ooty, before she'd started lessons with Mr Baldwin. And knowledge hit her like a snap of lightning. She knew exactly what she would do.

She would write to her solicitor.

She would make arrangements to have some money set aside in some sort of trust fund for Savitri. She was vague about such things but her solicitor would surely know. Yes; money, a dowry... Mrs Lindsay's mind ticked out a plan. The money should be promised now, under contract, and handed over when Savitri was eighteen — on the condition that she was not yet married. On the condition that she continued her education at least until she was fourteen. On the condition that she lived in her father's house till then, and was not shipped to Bombay or anywhere else to wait for marriage.

Mrs Lindsay was so excited she sat up in bed. Brilliant!

She got out of bed and padded to the window, her mind hard at work. The moon was full and the garden was cast in a silvery light, as though enchanted — the fragrances of rose and jasmine, even the very subtle strain of frangipani, met her nostrils and she breathed deeply. Ah ... wonderful. Fragrances carried far in the thin Indian atmosphere. Fragrances — and sounds. The breeze, whispering among the bougainvillea and the roses — whispering, as if human. As if human ... Mrs Lindsay listened, her senses sharpened by the underlying magic of the garden, and it was then she realised that the whispering was human, that it came from the next window, David's. And peering through the moonlight Mrs Lindsay saw a small shadowy form which could only be Savitri's, and though it was too late to hear the entire conversation, she did hear the last desperate words spoken by the children, their voices raised now in the forgetfulness of their fervour, and as clear as bells:

'No matter what, Savitri, do you promise to marry me? Do you promise? No matter what? Say, do you promise?'

'Yes, David, of course! I love you with all my heart and I promise to marry you.'

15

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

NAT

A Village in Madras State, 1950-1957

N
AT
, the villagers believed, always brought good luck. They noticed that when he played cricket with his friends his team always won, and so they said he had a Golden Hand, and they adopted him as their lucky mascot. When a house was to be built, they asked Nat to lay the first brick, and when it was finished, they asked him to be the first to enter it, leading in the cow with the garland around her neck and her horns painted yellow and red, and hung with bells. When the weeding season started in the fields they asked him to pull the first weed, and at weddings they asked him to touch the statue of Ganesh at the beginning of the ceremony, for Ganesh removes obstacles. But the best part of being a good luck mascot was the eating of sweets. Whenever condiments were prepared for any special occasion the mother of the house sent for Nat to eat the very first one, after the Blessing, and to pass his hand over all the rest. These things his father allowed.

'If I can take the first sweet, why can't I be the first to get milk from Kanairam's cow?' Nat asked Doctor. And Doctor had answered, 'Because sometimes Kanairam's cow does not have enough milk for everybody and they need the milk more than you. So I want you to go last, and then buy two cups, if he has so much. And if Kanairam's cow does not have enough milk then you can come home without and you can have Amul Spray powdered milk, but the villagers cannot do that. So I want you to be the last to buy milk, so that everybody gets milk, and Kanairam sells all his milk.'

Doctor did not believe that Nat brought good luck. He said the villagers only thought Nat brought good luck because his skin was so light, and they thought if Nat touched them or their things their babies would be born light-skinned too, and this was the real reason, and Doctor told Nat that the villagers believed light skin was better than dark skin, but it was not true. Nat thought much about these things, about what the villagers believed and what Doctor told him. He knew his father always told the truth, but he also knew it was true that the team he was on would win, even though he wasn't the best bowler — that was Gopal; or the best batter — that was Gautam; or the fastest — that was Ravi, Anand's son.

And yet Nat's team always won, and the villagers put Nat first in all they did, to bring them luck.

Still his father taught him to put himself last.

One thing was certain: Nat certainly brought luck to Gauri Ma. Somehow Nat had always noticed Gauri Ma, sitting in the first court of the temple near the Parvati tank, holding out her stumps to him and his father. Gauri Ma had leprosy. She didn't have feet, just two clumps at the end of her legs, wrapped in rags, and her wrists were bent curiously forwards, so that they formed two hooks, in which Gauri Ma, though she had no fingers, could manage to hold things by pressing the stumps of her hands to close the hooks.

Although she was a grown woman Gauri Ma was as thin and slight as a girl of twelve. Her skin hung on her little bones like a loose sack of thin, soft, black leather, and the ragged piece of cloth she wrapped around herself as a sari barely covered her lower parts. Like all the poorer women of the region she wore no upper clothing, but simply draped the shawl of her cloth across her sagging breasts and over her left shoulder. Nat noticed Gauri Ma the very first day she came to the temple, because of the lovely way she smiled at him, a smile much too wide for the little wizened face and much too joyful for the ragged piece of misery that she was, and showing a haphazard array of teeth reddened by chewing
paan
. That first day Nat, walking through the temple with his father, was stopped by just this smile. He stood in front of Gauri Ma (he didn't of course know her name), clamped the bunch of little bananas he had bought for the Mother gently under his arm, and greeted her with a smile of his own, the palms of his hands together, then pulled at his father's lungi.

'I'm going to give her something!' he said to his father. Doctor usually did not give anything to the beggars; or if he did, he gave to all. He would change about thirty rupees into one-rupee coins and distribute them among the beggars. He said he had to do it this way, because the moment they saw you giving to one beggar, they would swarm around you and follow you into the temple as far as they could go, calling out behind you, so it was better to give to none, or all. So Nat's words were very extraordinary, but this did not occur to him until he had spoken them, and realised that they had no one-rupee coins to give to all the beggars.

But the words were spoken, and words once spoken could not be withdrawn, and since Nat knew his father had no one-rupee coins he knew he'd have to give something of his own, so he took the bunch of bananas from under his arm, which were gold-yellow with not a trace of green, bulging with ripeness but not yet overripe, perfectly unblemished and as fit an offering to the Goddess Parvati as anything to be found in Town, and held it out to Gauri Ma, and she took it with her hooks and her smile widened all the more.

'Thank you, oh thank you,' she said, and touched it to her forehead several times, bowing her head in gratitude, and smiling her lovely smile which made Nat want to cry.

And from that day, whenever Nat saw Gauri Ma in the temple grounds, he would stop and smile and exchange a greeting with her. Sometimes he gave her a coin, but secretly, so no other beggar could see, and sometimes a banana, till all the other beggars came to recognise that Gauri Ma belonged to Nat and she to him, and they no longer minded when she and she alone received her offering from him. He was her
tamby,
her little golden-handed brother.

F
OR MANY YEARS
they were friends, and then, when Nat was fourteen, Gauri Ma got married, to a leper like herself but with a dirty beard, whose hand-stumps often oozed pus, whereas Gauri Ma's stumps were dean and dry and covered with scarred skin. Doctor told Gauri Ma's husband to come to the clinic to get his stumps bandaged, but he said it was too far to walk, so one day Doctor came with his doctor's case and told Gauri Ma's husband to follow him into the outer-outer-outermost court of the temple, to that strip of land all around the temple where trees grew and cows grazed and people attended to their excretions and dogs ate it up, and took him to a clean place under a jacaranda tree, and cleaned the wound and dressed it in a fresh white bandage. Nat did not much like Gauri Ma's husband but he supposed it was nice for her to have a companion, and Doctor told him that if she did not have a man to protect her, the other leper men would attack her at night and trouble her and steal the money she had begged that day. So it was good that Gauri Ma got married.

Soon after Gauri Ma got married Nat was on his way home from Town, riding his bicycle along the dusty road, when he saw Gauri Ma walking along the side of the road. Of course, Gauri Ma could not walk properly, it was more a limping, hobbling sort of movement. Nevertheless she had covered much ground by the time Nat saw her. He recognised her from behind, not only because of her gait but because of the dirty-purple sari she always wore, and as he drew up alongside her he pulled the bicycle brakes and swung to the ground. Nat was now a very stately young man, towering over Gauri Ma's little bent body. They greeted each other with the accustomed affection, but then Gauri Ma said something about her foot and when Nat looked down he was appalled. Both feet were now open at the front. Where till now there had been healthy — healthy for a leper — skin covering the end of the stump, there was only a purulent, bubbling ball of flesh. Gauri Ma said she was on her way to Doctor's surgery, so Nat helped her to sit on the bicycle's carrier and brought her home.

Since his father was away on the Triumph visiting a patient in the next village he cleaned the wound himself and bandaged it, the way he had seen his father do it; and where he had been disgusted at the sight of his father touching the sick flesh, even though he had been wearing thin rubber gloves, for some reason Nat felt not the least disgust.

Nat went into the room he still shared with his father and brought back a pair of his own leather
chappals
, which he buckled to Gauri Ma's feet. They were much too big, but the straps passed around her ankles and held them on, and they would offer a protection and so keep the bandage clean for a while.